The Il'ja Halperine-Kaminsky and His Contemporaries Collection was purchased by the CRC from bookseller I. Lempert in Paris in 1993. The Collection documents the personal life and professional activities of Russian literary translator Il'ja Halperine-Kaminsky and several prominent Russian intellectuals from his circle.
Il'ja Halperine-Kaminsky (1858-1936) worked as a translator from Russian into French. He was born in Russia. In 1890 he became a naturalized French citizen. He started his professional career as a journalist and worked for several French journals including Nature, Revue scientifique, Science populaire. In 1883 he became an editor for the French-Russian journal Franco-Russe, which published in two languages, French and Russian. He gained general popularity for his literary translations from Russian into French (including Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Dostoyevsky, Nekrasov), as well as for his literary translations from other languages into Russian (including Zola and Sienkiewicz).
This Collection also includes correspondence, writings and personal documents of Russian emigres belonging to the Halperine-Kaminsky circle, such as G. Adamovich, K. Balmont, I. Bunin, Z. Gippius, G. Ivanov, A. Kuprin, D. Merezhkovsky, and P. Miliukov.
The 2.00 linear feet of material includes Il'ja Halperine-Kaminsky personal and professional correspondence, draft variants, manuscripts and personal documents of his contemporaries, and covers the period from 1881 to 1961.
RELATED MATERIAL: The Amherst Center for Russian Culture has information about I. Halperine-Kaminsky's contemporaries beyond that found in this collection. Sources include: Z. Gippius and D. Merezhkovsky Papers, Yurii [George] P. Ivask Papers, Union of Russian Writers and Journalists Abroad Records. Contact the Amherst Center for Russian Culture for further information.